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Babette's Feast -- A Subtle and Heart-Warming Banquet

Gabriel Axel’s Danish drama “Babette’s Feast” (1987), which
won the ‘Best Foreign Film Academy Award’, was adapted from the short story by
Isak Dinesen. It is a food-centric movie that paints the unbreakable, but
pliable, human spirit in broader strokes. It is easy to take a cynical approach
with this film and write it off as a ‘feel-good dally’, but I felt that this is
one of the rare movies that treats human flaws, like narrow-mindedness with munificence.
It exhibits people’s good will without belittling their sentiments and beliefs.
‘Babette’s Feast’ is also a lovely film to look at. Its beautiful compositions
and sublime images compel us to ponder over the themes of friendship, hope and
gratitude.

The film’s first-act
tells the story of two sisters – Martine (Birgitte Federspiel) and Filippa
(Bodil Kjer) – who have lived all their lives in a remote Danish fishing
village. The story is set in the 19th century, and a series of
flashbacks reveals the details of the past. At the young age, the beautiful and
gorgeous sisters Martine and Filippa lived with their, extremely devout father
(Pouel Kern), a Protestant minister. He keeps his daughters so close to him and
runs off two potential suitors. Lorens Lowenheim (Gudmar Wivesson), a
fine-looking cavalry officer, sees Martina and enamored by her beauty he often
attends the minister’s prayer to be close with her. But, soon Lorens realizes
that he will never be accepted and leaves the village. A year later jovial
French opera star Achile Papin (Jean-Philippe Lafont) comes to the village to
find some solitude. After hearing Filippa’s soulful voice, he offers her
singing lessons. But, she gets frightened by his unbridled attention and
passion. Soon, she decides not to continue the lessons.

Years pass on, the sisters remain unmarried and their father
is long dead. They lead a simple life, leading prayer meetings with their small
sect and tending to the needs of poor. One day, a woman named Babette (Stephane Audran) arrives on the aging sister s doorstep with a letter from Papin. The
letter says that Babette has fled from Paris, where her son and husband have
been killed in the French uprising. The sisters take her in and the gentle
Babette works as a housekeeper for the next 14 years, until one day, a letter
arrives, informing Babette that she has won 10,000 francs in a lottery. Babette
might soon leave the sisters, so she requests to cook an exquisite French
dinner for them and their religious sect, in honor of the revered minister’s
100th birthday.

Veteran Danish film-maker Gabriel Axel takes a very subtle
and observant approach in ‘Babette’s Feast’. He showcases that the villagers’
moral uprightness have resulted in small-minded fights as they bicker each
other, but he never parodies the town folks. He doesn’t use their religious
piety to tag them as ignorant and mean-spirited people. In a way, we feel for
these parochial elderly people, who in their pursuit of spiritual knowledge
haven’t lived the life to fullest. On the other hand, we see two young men from
the rational world. They also have a feeling of emptiness, since they couldn’t
embrace the spiritual elements. But, Babette is rich in every manner, although
she has lost people whom she treasured “Artists are never poor” says Babette). She
is portrayed as a Christ-like figure and her feast (a Last Supper-like dinner
where there are 12 at the table) slowly erases away the disgruntled feeling of
towns folk and others. They renounce the human shortsightedness and pettiness
over the course of the feast.

The film’s third-act (the feast) could be enjoyed to the
fullest, even if you ignore the Christian symbols. The feast scenes might put a
gentle smile on your face. Earlier, when Babette brings in bottles of wine and
large turtle, Filippa has a nightmare and proclaims to her religious sect that
the dinner is a ‘witches sabbath’. She asks them not to react to their sensory
pleasures at the dinner table. However, over the course of feast we gradually
see the stern-faces of these folks reacting to the culinary tastes. They
eventually realize that a fine food and wine doesn’t endanger one’s spirituality
(“Righteousness and bliss have kissed each other” says the dinner’s special
guest General Lowenheim). Once again in these scenes, the film-maker only makes
us laugh at these good people’s silliness and fear, not at themselves.

Bodil Kjer and Birgitte Federspiel as the aging sisters
subtly bring out all the melancholy, pain of loss and love they have
experienced in their lives. However, Stephane Audran dominates the film with
her restrained performance. As Babette, she exudes gentleness as well as
authority that undercut all the rigidity. Cinematographer Henning Kristiansen
gray visuals of humid Danish coast seems like a nod to Ingmar Bergman. The
camera work in the titular dinner scenes travels closely to etch out the joy in
the characters’ face. Some of the sweeping rural vistas are framed like a
renaissance-era paintings.

Although the movie’s feel-good nature have earned the name,
‘award-bait movie’, “Babette’s Feast” (104 minutes) is a truly nourishing
cinematic experience. It is a timeless parable that depicts how food is
important to enrich our soul.